Male/Male Mystery and Suspense Box Set: 6 Novellas Read online

  An incredible savings. Over 600 pages and 200,000 words for less than $1.50 a book. This box set contains six complete bestselling mystery and suspense novellas by one of the leading authors of Male/Male crime and mystery fiction.

  The Dark Horse - Paul Hammond is dead. That’s what tough and sexy LAPD Detective Daniel Moran tells his lover, Hollywood actor Sean Fairchild—and Sean wants to believe him, but what about those threatening postcards in Hammond’s handwriting?

  A Vintage Affair - Somewhere in the cobwebbed cellar of the decrepit antebellum mansion known as Ballineen are the legendary Lee bottles—and Austin Gillespie is there to find them. What he finds is the dashing and disturbing Jeff Brady.

  Blood Red Butterfly - Despite falling in love with aloof manga artist Kai Tashiro, Homicide Detective Ryo Miller is determined to break the alibi Kai is supplying his murderous boyfriend—even if it means breaking Kai with it.

  Don’t Look Back - Peter Killian, curator at Constantine House in Los Angeles, wakes in the hospital to find himself accused of stealing a Tenth Century Chinese sculpture.

  Lovers and Other Strangers - Recovering from a near fatal accident, artist Finn Barret returns to Seal Island in Maine only to learn his twin brother has been missing for three years.

  Cards on the Table - Fifty years ago a glamorous Hollywood party ended in murder—the only clue a bloody Tarot card. Timothy North is trying to find out what happened that long ago summer’s night.

  Male/Male Mystery and Suspense Box Set: 6 Novellas

  Smashwords edition, June 2014

  Copyright (c) 2014 by Josh Lanyon

  Cover by KB Smith

  Edited by Keren Reed

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-937909-65-9

  Published in the United States of America

  JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.

  3053 Rancho Vista Blvd.

  Suite 116

  Palmdale, CA 93551

  www.joshlanyon.com

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  The Dark Horse

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  A Vintage Affair

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Blood Red Butterfly

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Don’t Look Back

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Lovers and Other Strangers

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Cards on the Table

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  The Dark Horse

  Dedication:

  To all those for whom The Charioteer made a difference

  “But I should have come back, anyway. I should have had to come back.”

  The Charioteer, Mary Renault

  Chapter One

  The postcard was nestled between Variety and the Edison bill.

  Just an ordinary picture postcard. White font proclaimed MALIBU! across the mai tai-colored sunset. I turned the card over, and there was the spidery black writing I had thought I would never see again.

  Miss me?

  No signature. No signature needed. I looked at the postmark. Pacific Coast Highway. Yesterday’s date.

  I stared for a long time while Dan’s deep voice receded into the cries of the gulls overhead and the pound of the waves on the beach a few yards away, until those too faded to a kind of white noise.

  No. God.

  Then Dan stretched across and took the card from my unresisting hand, and I was abruptly returned to the present.

  The wooden chair creaked as he leaned back, his long muscular body at ease. His dark brows drew together. Absently, he raked his still-wet hair back. It wasn’t like there was a lot to read. One simple sentence.

  Miss me?

  A rhetorical question if there ever was one.

  Water glistened on Dan’s broad sun-browned shoulders, one drop trickling down between his rock-hard pecs, sparkling through the dusting of dark hair across his flat abdomen. The tiny flicker of irritation I’d felt at his arrogance faded in the wake of lust. After he’d spent nearly a month playing Bodyguard to the Stars, I couldn’t blame him if he still occasionally reacted like he was getting paid for overtime.

  “It’s not Hammond,” he said, and tossed the card to the table. It landed face up in a blob of crabapple jelly.

  “The writing is the same.”

  “Superficially. We’d have to get it analyzed. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Say one of his cards was delayed for a few days; it doesn’t change the fact that he’s dead.”

  “If he is dead.”

  His eyes, blue as the surf behind him, met mine levelly. “Sean, he’s dead. I saw the car. No one could have survived that crash.”

  “Then why wasn’t his body recovered?”

  “It’s somewhere in the aqueduct. I don’t know. It must have been swept away or lodged somehow.”

  I nodded tightly. It’s not like there’s high tide in the California Aqueduct.

  Dan’s large hand slid under my fingers nervously fiddling with a teaspoon. “It’s over, chief. Trust me.”

  “I do.” It came out more husky than I’d intended.

  He turned my hand palm up, lightly kissing it. The warmth of his lips against my surf-chilled skin made me shiver. I dropped the teaspoon. It hit the edge of my saucer with a silvery chime. He grinned.

  You only ever hear about closeted cops, so Dan’s relaxed attitude still caught me off guard. He was probably more at ease with his sexuality than half the “civilians” I knew. He sure as hell was more relaxed than me.

  I pulled my hand away at the familiar yap-yapping of the four-legged hairball belonging to our nearest neighbor, Mrs. Wilgi. Sure enough, a moment later “Mrs. Wiggly” came around the cairn of rocks, armed with her usual binoculars and police whistle.

  I caught Dan’s eye. His grin was wry. He was getting to read me pretty well.

  I said, “Hey, for all I
know Mrs. Wiggly has a spy cam concealed in her muumuu.”

  He forked another waffle off the plate. “I don’t even want to think about what that muumuu conceals.”

  I laughed. My glance fell on the jam-stained postcard, and I made myself look away. If Dan said it was over, it was over. He was the expert here.

  All the same, after a year of being stalked, it wasn’t so easy to drop my guard. One week after Paul Hammond lost control of his car during a police chase on Highway 138 and crashed into the California Aqueduct, I still tensed when the phone rang, waiting for that familiar whisper. I still sorted through my mail fast, trying to get it over with in case, like today, something ugly fell out of the mix. I still watched the rearview mirror everywhere I drove, although for the past three weeks Lt. Daniel Moran of the LAPD had been riding shotgun with me—when he didn’t insist on doing the actual driving.

  I said, talking myself away from my anxiety, “I just don’t want to turn up in the National Inquirer as the gay Bennifer or something.”

  “Dansean?” Dan suggested, playing along.

  “I’m the celebrity,” I pointed out. “My name gets top billing. Maybe…Seandan.”

  “You can be the top anything you like.” Dan’s eyes were very blue. “Just say the word.”

  Heat rose in my face.

  I mean, how ridiculous was that? You’d think I was a blushing virgin of seventeen, instead of being a reasonably experienced twenty-five-year-old veteran of the Hollywood party scene. True, most seventeen-year-olds probably saw more action than me—although things were definitely looking up these days.

  Automatically, I returned Mrs. Wilgi’s wave as she tromped along the shoreline, her red-and-yellow dress puffing out and flattening against her ungainly body. The dog, barking hysterically, veered off, galloping toward the deck where we sat, as though he’d just noticed this house on the otherwise empty beach.

  “Doesn’t that thing have an off button?” I murmured.

  Mrs. Wilgi began clapping frantically and calling to the dog.

  “Binky! Binky!”

  “Speaking of off buttons,” Dan remarked, “I’m supposed to start back at work tomorrow.”

  “Oh.”

  I tried to hide it, but I knew he could see my disappointment.

  He said, his tone very casual, “Were you planning to stay out at the beach for a few days or should I drop some things off at the house?”

  “The House” being my place in the Hollywood Hills. My place and now, maybe, Dan’s place, too. It was still so new this relationship, so unexpected. We were both tentative, feeling our way along. Trying not to take too much for granted. Or spoil it by not taking enough for granted.

  I said, going for the same off-hand note, “I was thinking of staying out until next weekend. What do you think? Malibu too far to drive every evening?”

  “Not if I’m waking up next to you every morning.”

  My heart skipped a beat. How the hell could he say this stuff and not sound corny? Practice, I guess. Dan was ten years older than me—and they had been an active ten years.

  I said, “That can be arranged.”

  We’d been sleeping together for one week, starting with the night Dan had returned home to tell me Hammond had crashed into the aqueduct. But the attraction had been immediate. My manager, Steve Kreiger, kept saying what a great screenplay it would make. Gay cop falls for the gay actor he’s assigned to protect from a crazed stalker. And it was true: for once real life was every bit as satisfying as the movies. Dan was a decorated officer frequently held up as the poster boy for the new and improved (read “sensitive and diverse”) LAPD. It didn’t hurt that he was articulate, smart, and old-fashioned movie-star handsome. A straight arrow in every way but one—and that one way got him assigned to my bodyguard detail.

  So now we were finding out what happened after the screen faded to black and the final credits rolled.

  Mrs. Wiggly was blowing her police whistle like a crime was in progress. The fur ball ignored her, barking shrilly, plumy tail waving frantically as he stood at the steps of the deck.

  I tossed a sausage link, just missing Binky’s indignant nose. Both Dan and the mutt disapproved of this—the mutt vocally, Dan silently. I was getting to know him well enough to translate his silences. I smiled at him, and he shook his head a little.

  “I’m trying to win him over,” I said.

  “I don’t think he appreciates your cooking the way I do.”

  “I guess not.”

  I was going to miss our early morning swims followed by these lazy breakfasts. I was going to miss having Dan around all day. Hopefully, I’d be going back to work myself before long. But what happened if the next film I got required a location shoot? Dan and I were way too new to survive extended long distance. I knew, without asking, that he would not be willing to hang up his career in law enforcement to keep me company in New Zealand or Romania for twelve weeks. And I was at a place in my own career where I had to pick my projects carefully.

  He pushed his chair back and said, “I think I’ll have a quick shower and drive into town. I want to pick up a few things.”

  “Okay.” My gaze wandered back to the postcard.

  “Want to help me try out my new back-scrubber?”

  I laughed. He made it so easy. I rose, dismissing the card, but as I followed Dan indoors, I couldn’t help wondering…if Paul Hammond hadn’t sent that card, who had?

  * * * * *

  “Gotta admit, I had my doubts about you when I saw the pink bubble bath.” Dan squirted pastel gel into the ramie mitt and slid it over my shoulders. Scented steam rose from the granite floor of the large shower stall.

  “Mm. That feels good.” I bent my head, and he smoothed the mitt down the nape of my neck. “It’s not bubble bath. It’s shampoo slash shower gel. There’s a difference.”

  “You’d know. I’ve never seen so many grooming aids in one bathroom.” The rough cotton felt good on my wet skin, and Dan applied just the right amount of pressure. I relaxed—only recognizing at that moment how wound up I’d been.

  “Tools of the trade,” I informed him. “I’m a commodity. I’m in business, and I am my product.”

  “That attitude and a pair of tight jeans will get you arrested on Hollywood Boulevard.”

  “They tell me attitude is everything.”

  He pulled me back against his wet, hard body. I arched my neck for his kiss and his mouth closed on mine, warm and male, and with a hint of the tart-sweetness of crabapple. Our tongues slid together, twined. My heart started that heavy slow beat that matched the throb in my groin.

  “You are so beautiful…”

  “I bet you say that to all th—” His hands slid over my slick body, flicking my nipples. I moaned into his mouth, words failing me. If felt so good. Everything he did felt good. He never made a wrong move; that was the advantage of having so much experience. Of course, that kind of expertise was a little intimidating sometimes.

  Putting my hands over his, I held them against my chest. He palmed the nipples, back and forth, just the right amount of teasing abrasion.

  I turned to face him—wrapped my arms around him.

  Smoothing the mitt over my ass, Dan gave one cheek a playful squeeze before sweeping the mitt up my spine. My dick came up like a divining rod, nudging his already hard thickness. Heart pounding, I pressed against him, wanting more, wanting closer. I was surprised the shower drops didn’t sizzle on my skin; I was so hot for him. Dan shook off the mitt and his hands closed on my ass, urging me closer. I groaned, feeling for his cock.

  “Yeah, Sean, just like that,” he muttered.

  His fingers slid down the crevice between my butt cheeks, intimate and familiar, finding the mouth of the secret passage. He delicately circled my opening, then slipped the tip of one finger inside: a sweet and slow piercing. I caught my breath.

  Just a fingertip, like the press of a button—a button I badly wanted him to push. That weird clawing ache started in m
y belly. I made a sound in the back of my throat; even I wasn’t sure what I meant.

  Dan’s kiss gentled. He kissed the underside of my jaw, his finger simply holding its place, like a book he meant to read later.

  Let go, I instructed myself, impatiently. What the hell is the hold up? You want him. He wants you. Act, if you have to.

  Act like…a porn star.

  I found his mouth, kissed him back hard, surging up against him. I could feel his surprise. His mouth covered mine hungrily. He pushed his finger into me deeply; I started, my foot slipping out from under me in the sudsy warm water.

  He steadied me, both hands on my arms, smiling. “Easy, chief.”

  “Yeah.” I laughed, but after a week of this I wasn’t fooling anybody, including myself. “I’m just not sure about that yet,” I said, feeling like a fool. I still felt the memory of his finger in my body—an erotic fingerprint.

  “I know.” He sounded easy and a little amused.

  “I mean, I want to,” I said. “I’m just…” Why did I have to say anything? The last thing I wanted was for this to turn into an issue. Why couldn’t I just have let it happen, naturally, spontaneously?

  “We don’t have to rush it.”

  Was six days rushing it? Probably not. His dick poked into my belly like an elbow in the ribs reminding me that he had places to go and things to do, and so far this morning he wasn’t getting anything but talk.

  Porn star, remember? Act. It’s what you’re good at.

  “Let me tell you a little secret,” I said and slid to my knees to take the head of his cock into my mouth.

  “Oh, my God,” Dan said, closing his eyes. His fingers brushed my cheek. “What you do to me.”